The other war that should be stopped

Emma Bonino, Italian Political Renegade, Project Syndicate

The world's attention has been focused on the war on Iraq. But another war -- this one UN-sanctioned -- has been going on simultaneously: the war on drugs. Every sensible person should want this largely ignored war to end as well. While the UN should play a role in leading Iraq toward a free and democratic society, it must also change dramatically its own course in the war on drugs and lead the world to a saner policy.

In 1998, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the third Convention on Narcotic and Psychotropic substances, the United Nations convened a special General Assembly session to discuss the issue of illicit drugs. At the end of that forum, UN member states adopted a political declaration that mandated the UN Drug Control Program (UNDCP) "to develop strategies with a view to eliminating or significantly reducing the illicit cultivation of the coca bush, the cannabis plant, and the opium poppy by the year 2008."

On April 16-17, the international community will re-convene in Vienna to reckon with the results of the policies the UN has pursued. But five years into the program, one thing is clear: The results are grim. According to a UNDCP report issued in 2002 called Illicit Drug Trends, new markets for narcotics are expanding faster than old ones are being shut down. Drug dealers, like sharp businessmen everywhere, have gone out and found new markets. Eastern countries (the postcommunist world in Europe and the richer countries of Asia) are consuming more and more drugs, because the older markets of Western Europe and North America are saturated.

Across the world, narcotics trafficking is on the increase, not only because new markets are coming online, but also because new countries have taken up production. Moreover, new synthetic and chemical substances, which are more potent and often less expensive than the "classic" ones, are being invented.

It is time to acknowledge that the "war on drugs" is lost -- indeed, a monumental failure -- and that hostilities should end.

Every aspect of the war strategy has failed. Harsh new domestic laws in many countries have not only failed to control the spread of drugs throughout the world, but have delivered a vast new source of state intrusiveness into the lives of millions of people. Prohibition created a pretext for authoritarian regimes to resist the abolition of death penalty; yet even states that execute people for drug-related crimes have not been able to stem the tide. To circumvent the harsh legal regime now in place narcotics mafias have forged ever-tighter alliances with terrorist networks.

Can the world afford to continue subsidizing this failure? Can our money be wasted for much longer on fumigating Colombian valleys or arresting non-violent drug offenders? Can we -- including those of us who are elected officials -- pretend that prohibitions on illicit drugs will one day prove effective? The answer to all these questions, of course, is: "No, we cannot."

Instead, we must recognize that prohibition, rather than curtailing use, generates crime, because it makes trading in illicit drugs a lucrative business. As politicians everywhere remain loath to be seen as "soft on drugs," something must be done to call attention to this remorseless failure. One ploy taken up by some members of my Transnational Radical Party in France, Belgium, the UK, and Italy has been to "denounce themselves" to their national authorities and then to disobey the prohibitionist laws by distributing drugs to passers-by during political demonstrations. By openly inviting the police to jail otherwise respected members of the community, these activists hope to show the absurdity of harsh anti-drug laws.

These Gandhian acts of non-violent civil disobedience have had an effect. Recently, 109 members of the European Parliament introduced a recommendation calling for reform of the UN Conventions on drugs. An "International Anti-Prohibitionist League" is now at work, calling for repeal or amendment of the UN treaties in order to allow for experimentation with legalization by individual nations.

At the upcoming Commission on Narcotics meeting in April, UN member states will have an opportunity to reassess the effectiveness of the 1998 Plan of Action. Sadly, however, the reality of its failure to come anywhere close to achieving its stated goals has not dented the minds of national governments: Not one state has voiced its opposition to current strategies.

But turning a blind eye to failure only increases its cost. So long as the UN anti-drug mandates remain in place, legalization of treatments, cures, and drugs that today are illicit -- and recall that it was the end of prohibition alone that ended the reign of gangsters like Al Capone in the 1920s -- will remain impossible.

The Vienna meeting offers a rare opportunity to change course. Instead of insisting on replicating our failures, the world needs to adopt new approaches that treat the disease of drug use, instead of criminalizing it. Otherwise, we will all remain addicted to a failed drug war.

Emma Bonino is a Member of the European Parliament, a former EU Commissioner, and a prominent member of the Transnational Radical Party.